VITAL Course Copy tips – checking weblinks and date rules

Once you have run Course Copy for your new modules there are a couple of useful VITAL utilities that can help you quickly check a) whether all of your module weblinks (links to external web pages etc) are still working and update them where necessary (Link Checker), and b) adjust the dates for copied content that has due dates, date-based adaptive release rules or date availability settings from a central overview page (Date Management).

Link Checker – a report that will list all of the weblinks in the copied module content on one page and check whether any are broken and visible (A in the screenshot below) so that these can be hidden (B in the screenshot below). Access this from the module’s Control Panel in the Course Tools section. When you click the Link Checker link the tool will start the checking process so there may be a few seconds until the results display.Once you have hidden links you can go directly to the page in the module (C in the screenshot below) where it is held to update the link.

Link Checker example report

Date Management – On one page you can see a list of all of the due dates, availability dates and date adaptive release rules for the copied module content and adjust these for the new academic year (also useful if you need to make changes to the schedule of a module during term-time). Again, access this from the module’s Control Panel in the Course Tools section. Click the Date Management link here. Dates can be adjusted individually or in a batch. Click the option List all dates for review option when you first use this tool if you want to see all of the dates in a list to adjust them individually. If you then want to use the batch update facility, click the Run Date Management button at the upper left of the page and select batch option to Adjust by number of days (we don’t use course start dates or term info at Liverpool for VITAL modules so don’t use these options). Watch this Blackboard video guide for an overview.